Want to know which FAANG benefit I am personally most grateful for?
Is it the 1 month recharge? The 50% match on your entire 401k contribution? The 16 weeks of paid parental leave (for both parents!)? The free meals? The ability to work remote? The shuttles?
None of those even come close to the benefit I am most grateful for.
I wouldn't have my 5.75 year old daughter right now if it wasn't for the fertility benefits. I am incredibly grateful that both Meta and Uber offered them. Being able to go through IVF 3 times without the financial burden was a tremendous gift.
Fertility Benefits via Progyny
Meta and Uber both offered their benefits through Progyny for no additional cost to the employee. Each plan covered 4 “smart cycles” which is Progyny’s baby creating currency. Different types of fertility treatments would cost a different amount of “smart cycles”. 1 smart cycle was essentially a comprehensive, end to end, IVF cycle.
I am happy to talk about RSU taxation all day… but to this day, fertility math eludes me. Luckily, Progyny will walk you through the entire process. I think technically we ended up using somewhere around 2.75 cycles. 1 Cycle on Uber’s Plan and then the final ones on Meta’s (due to the overall medical coverage being better).
Our total out of pocket cost for those 3 IVF rounds was in the neighborhood of ~$2,800. Which is nothing compared to the nearly >$20,000 each round would cost without any benefits.
To talk through the actual IVF experience my wife was kind enough to share her personal notes on the entire journey.
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TW: This next section covers Infertility, IVF, and pre-mature birth.
The following is a note my wife, Corin, shared in January 2018 reflecting back on the previous year.
Double Lines
2017! What a journey it’s been. For us, it’s been one of the most challenging and yet most rewarding years of our lives. After unsuccessfully trying to build a family on our own, we decided to move on to more invasive fertility treatments and try our luck with IVF. So here we are, inviting you to sit tight, as this is a bit of a long story.
What we thought it would take
Naively we thought IVF would be the magic bullet. We thought I would take a few drugs, have a procedure and I’d be pregnant within a month. That’s the power of science, right? Pffffffff. We couldn’t have been more wrong on so many levels. Despite the amazing medical advancements in the past 30 years, what we didn’t realize is that IVF is still very much a game of luck. It doesn’t always work and when it does, on average 34% of patients in my age group end up with a baby to take home. That’s pretty low considering the costs hover around 20k for each treatment cycle. For us, even with the most aggressive treatment, the estimated chances of us conceiving with IVF were closer to 10%.
Round 1
Preparing for egg retrieval
We forged ahead with our first round of IVF at the beginning of the year full of hope and excitement.
We ordered fertility drugs from a specialized pharmacy online. Instead of having them delivered to our apartment in the Mission - a no-go for receiving packages - I decided to have them delivered to the Uber office on Market.
An enormous package, carefully packed with dry ice, arrived at my desk. I could feel the curious glances of my coworkers as I quickly dashed to the cafeteria with the cooler in tow, searching for fridge space to store everything until I got home.
After that, I watched videos and took a class on administering injections. Somehow I managed to stab myself in the stomach 6 times a day. It wasn’t that terrible at first, but started to get quite painful once I ran out of space on my belly.
Ooof, these twice a day.
As the hormones began to build up in my system, I started to experience all the side effects - nausea, bloating, exhaustion, and, oh my, the mood swings. The grueling day-in and day-out of medications, injections, appointments, blood tests, and invasive ultrasounds were intense.
Despite being prescribed the maximum amount of drugs possible, my monitoring revealed that I wasn't growing many eggs. We didn't lose hope and looked forward to the next phase in the process, egg retrieval surgery.
Egg retrieval day
Due to daily blood draws throughout monitoring, my arms were bruised and my veins collapsed. The nurse couldn’t access a vein for the sedation, but after bringing in another nurse and prodding around for a bit, they finally got the IV in. They knocked me out for surgery and then removed all the eggs from my body. I don’t remember a thing. I woke up from anesthesia with pain, nausea and a bizarre overwhelming feeling of sadness. The nurse came around to tell us the number of eggs retrieved. We waited for my anesthesia to wear off for a few hours before returning home to recover. We went home and anxiously awaited for the fertilization report.
Embryo transfer
Luckily, we ended up with 2 beautiful embryos.
Our beautiful little embies.
We decided to transfer both of them at once. We watched in wonder on the ultrasound screen as the embryos were being implanted back into my body. The procedure was quick and felt like a sharp pinch.
2 week wait
Then we nervously waited two weeks to take a pregnancy test. It felt like the longest two weeks of our lives.
Pregnancy test
The nurse called to tell us the results of our pregnancy test. “I’m really sorry but your results are negative,” she said. We were heartbroken. Neither of our beautiful embryos grew into the little babies we hoped for.
Round 2
A few months later, we tried another round of IVF. I still had some of the hormones in my system, so adding more made me feel like garbage. We tried a different cocktail of drugs this time to see if my body could make more eggs. Unfortunately, I produced even fewer eggs this time. We still ended up with 2 embryos and transferred them both.
We were hopeful it would work this time, but the cycle ended in failure yet again. We were crushed. There were quite a few nights when I was inconsolable and wanted to give up. I felt way too battered and heartbroken to continue, but we knew we needed to keep trying if we had any chance at all. So we did.
Round 3
We took a few months off to let my body recuperate and then decided to try our 3rd round.
After 14 days of injections, I hadn't grown any eggs. The cycle was cancelled and downgraded to an IUI. We were beyond devastated this time. Nearly a year had gone by of relentless treatments and we were spent - emotionally, physically, and even spiritually. I was angry, bitter and so lost in finding my way. To give you a sense of where my head was at, this is a passage from my journal (excuse my f-bombs):
"Dear infertility, Fuck you. Fuck your injections 6 times a day. Fuck your endless procedures and surgeries. Fuck your constant disappointment and uncertainty. Fuck your isolation, anger and depression. Fuck your waiting while trying to remain hopeful. Fuck your purgatory, your stuck in-between. Fuck your years of failure and utter heartbreak. Fuck you, infertility. Seriously, fuck you.”
We had pretty much given up on the cycle and well, this entire terrible year, when I decided, "Welp, I guess I'll take a test to confirm the worst."
Squinting, I could see faint double lines. "What? Could this be real?" We tested again. And again. And a few more times. And then we confirmed the results with two blood tests. We held each other in disbelief and cried tears of joy. Miraculously, we were actually pregnant!
We tested again. And again. And a few more times.
What it actually took
It took 2 and 1/2 years, 4 arbitration agreements, 24 legal consent forms, 2 genetic screenings, 24 blood draws, 20 invasive ultrasounds, 26 appointments, 15 patches, 210 suppositories, 232 hormone injections, full-blown clinical depression, 30 therapy sessions, 2 surgeries, 3 procedures, 4 sperm samples and almost 60 thousand dollars to see those double lines!
This miracle baby in my belly, soon in our arms, fills us with so much love, hope and gratitude. When we look at our ultrasound photos, we just can’t believe it’s real. For years we drifted along this path never knowing where we'd end up. And against impossible odds, we're watching my body transform and grow with life. We're so excited we can hardly stand it! There will be sleepless nights and difficult days ahead, we know. We've longed for those too.
Coming in June 2018
We’re overjoyed to welcome baby Nader in June 2018! Happy new year!
That Was Just the Start
(Andre writing now)
I cry every single time I read this. I am so thankful that Corin wrote down her feelings. As she mentioned, we were expecting baby Nader in June 2018. Well— baby Nader decided she wanted to be an April baby instead. Giving us our first lesson in parenting, that she is in control of the timeline, not us.
Shared May 2nd, 2018:
Corin and I would like to introduce the world to Rosalin Nader.
She joined us very much by surprise early Monday morning. We are feeling all the emotions at once but both Mom and baby are doing good.
Coming in at 3.6lbs (31 weeks) she tried entering into the world left foot first! I was told she was crying and active the minute they pulled her out. She is already proving to be a feisty one and breathing on her own with a little assist from the cpap.
All the doctors and nurses at UCSF have been wonderful and Rosalin has an army of people on her side.
42 Days Later
I’ll skip ahead, perhaps this gap is a post for another day. My keyboard is already drenched with tears recalling that moment in time and I’m already mentally re-hearing the beeps from all the machines.
On June 10th, after 42 days in the NICU, we were finally able to take baby Nader home for the first time (via an Uber).
Coming home after spending time in the NICU is an absolutely wild transition. You go 42 days surrounded by the best nurses, doctors, every flavor of specialist checking on every little thing… to suddenly needing to do it all yourself!
We were finally home, together, at last.
I had been wanting to write this post for awhile. Then, last week the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos were children causing fertility clinics across the state to slam the brakes on treatments that involved fertilizing the embryos.
I am hoping that the Alabama state representatives, the Governor and the attorney general, are taking steps to protect IVF treatments from the ruling asap. I can’t imagine the families in Alabama who were already going through one of the most stressful experiences of their lives only to have to make last minute changes to their plans. These processes aren’t things you can just pause and start back up on a whim. Months of preparation and often years worth of savings all on the line.
In just two months we will be celebrating my daughter’s 6th birthday.
Thank you to the miracle of modern medicine, a lot of luck, and the employee benefits that made it all possible.
To the other families that are on this journey, find friends and communities that you can talk about this with. It is an incredibly emotionally draining time. Anticipation, excitement, disappointment, all within the span of a few days.
To those who are on the other side, talk about your experiences. You will be surprised by the comfort you may be giving to someone else who feels alone on an incredibly isolating journey.
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